NBN Co. appoints IBM as its prime OSS systems integrator

Australia's NBN Co., the operating company of Australia's National Broadband Network project, has named IBM (NYSE: IBM) as its prime systems integrator for its OSS systems.

IBM, under the terms of a three-year $205 million agreement, will provide a system that will support retail service providers that want to order wholesale services from NBN in addition to providing reports on network faults and perform service qualification checks via business-to-business interfaces and/or portals.

The new systems will enable NBN Co to monitor network performance and bill service provider customers.

This has been a big week for the ambitious NBN Co project. In addition to naming IBM as its OSS systems integrator, the Australian Senate approved two new NBN bills: the National Broadband Network Companies Bill 2010 and the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (NBN Measures - Access Arrangements) Bill 2010. These bill establish ownership, governance and sale arrangements for NBN Co.